


In the Coming Days

by lizznotliz



Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 03:48:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14729384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizznotliz/pseuds/lizznotliz
Summary: Diana stays, for a little while.(Snippets set between the end of the film and World War II.)





	In the Coming Days

Diana stays, for a little while. 

There's not much use for a spy's secretary when the spy is dead and the war is over, so Diana helps Etta clean up the office. The papers are either confiscated or burned, the furniture reclaimed, the maps rolled up. Etta sneaks a few things in her bag - blurry photographs and notes in Steve's hand - and she tries to present them to Diana when they are back in her flat later that night. But Diana refuses them, gently, because she knows how much Etta misses him, too.

There is a watch in the bottom of the rucksack that Chief gave her. That is enough.

The boys come round one night at Etta's invitation. She's just secured a new secretarial job - "another slavery position," she says, winking at Diana - and she wants to celebrate. She looks for any reason to celebrate these days. Charlie and Sameer are just as willing to share drinks and food and Chief tags along because he has nowhere else to go.

"Are you going to get a job, too?" He asks Diana. She's been staying on Etta's couch, wearing the clothes Steve bought for her and trying not to stare at children when they go to the market for groceries. The women on Themyscira had trades - healers and blacksmiths and tutors and farmers - but Diana had always been trained for war, trained for royalty.

She was a weapon. Weapons don't get jobs.

"I want to go home," she says, "but I do not know if I can." Chief nods like he understands. He probably does, she realizes, more than anyone else.

The next morning he shows up at Etta's flat, hat in hand, and says he's procured a boat. "If the Germans found your home, surely we can, too." Sameer and Charlie are waiting on the dock, rucksacks already stowed below deck. Etta cups Diana's face in her hands and kisses her forehead and whispers _be safe_ and for a moment Diana thinks leaving is the wrong thing to do, but then Etta shoos her away with tears in her eyes and promises to write.

They don't really know where they're going, but they have an idea. It's vague, but enough to go on. Steve made notes about the positions of constellations while they were sailing; Etta had stolen them away from the office before they could be collected and snuck them to Sameer just before they left. During the day, as they sail, Sameer and Charlie joke and laugh about how lucky they will be in the coming days, to be surrounded by so many beautiful women, but at night when Diana tells them stories of her home they are solemn and respectful.

Charlie sings.

Sameer recites Shakespeare.

Chief teaches her his language.

They sail for a month, two weeks in circles matching constellations to Steve's notes, and they never once see the island.

"When I left, my mother told me that if I did so, I may never return," Diana says. Charlie and Sameer are asleep. The Chief is lying next to her, quiet and still, but she knows he's still awake. "I thought she meant I _might_ never return, that she feared my death. Now I wonder if she meant I was no longer _allowed_ to return."

"So you'll find a new home," Chief says.

"Is it that simple?"

"No," he admits. "Not at all."

 

 

 

They go back to London and see Etta, who's started dating a man named Matthew. He was a solider - well, a medic - and he recognizes Diana immediately. When they're introduced, he wrings her hand in gratitude but he can't seem to get the words out and Etta has to lean in and whisper, "He was at the front."

"No Man's Land," Diana says, seeking confirmation, and Matthew's eyes brim with tears.

"I saw you that day. Now Etta's told me all about you," he says. "I'm so glad you were on our side."

She wants to tell him that she had no side, that she was only on the side of peace, but Matthew is a doctor and she thinks maybe he's one of the men who makes good choices.

Matthew is polite and smiles easily for someone whose eyes are still haunted; he treats Etta well and Diana likes seeing her friend so happy. Once, Matthew offers to bring a friend of his around for Diana but Etta shuts him down before Diana even has a chance. 

She's not overstepping.

 

 

 

Chief decides to go home for a while. What's left of it.

His family was pushed off of their land, but they found some more. A new home, he says, nodding solemnly to Diana. He's going to go back now with the money he made from the war and try to do something for his people.

"You can do nothing or you can do something," Diana says, quoting Steve, and Chief tips his hat in her direction. "Could I-- I mean, may I accompany you?" She asks. "Or would you rather go alone?"

Chief smiles.

Etta and Matthew and Charlie and Sameer throw them a going away party. Etta keeps crying and when Diana tries to comfort her she grows frustrated: "Oh stop!" She cries. "I know you're meant for more than kipping on my couch!"

(Diana dreams of taking Etta to Themyscira; she is so different from the women Diana grew up with, and somehow just the same. She imagines walking the beaches together, imagines introducing Etta to her mother, imagines the Amazons greeting her with a hero's welcome. She wakes with a smile on her face.)

By the time they reach Chief's family, Diana is fluent in his language. His siblings and cousins, nieces and nephews greet them warmly and invite her into their homes. When they share stories of their hardships and triumphs, Diana listens and learns, and when they ask her for stories of her own she responds with her most intimate and cherished tales in kind. Children hug Chief's knees and ask if the strange woman's stories are true: _did she really kill a god?_

Chief nods. The children look at her with bright eyes; the smallest ones climb into her lap. Diana smiles and it makes Chief laugh.

 

 

 

She's been living with Chief's family for almost a year when Etta sends a letter saying that she and Matthew are engaged. By the time Diana gets the letter, the wedding's already occurred, but she starts making plans to go back to London anyway. She doesn't know if London is where she is meant to stay - if its the new home Chief told her she would find - but she misses Etta and she's imposed on Chief's life for long enough. 

Still, she takes her time going back, traveling through Canada and America alone on her way to the coast. It's beautiful and hideous in equal measure and when she finally hits the ocean homesickness brings her to her knees. 

(How could she have ever taken Themyscira for granted?)

By the time she gets back to London, Etta is pregnant. The moment she arrives, Matthew starts clearing out the attic. "We've already talked about you," Etta tells her over tea. "It was my idea, how you could stay and keep quiet."

"What do you mean?"

Etta rolls her eyes: "Not that I expect you to _keep quiet_ , I mean, just that I know you're trying to stay out of the limelight now. Matthew's agreed: you'll stay here with us."

"Something tells me that's not typical in your culture," Diana says kindly. She's learning.

"Nannies do. Uh, do you know-- a nanny is a woman who helps take care of the baby. You can stay here, with us, and help me take care of the baby. No one would think anything of it. Would you like that?" Etta's smile fades. "You don't-- I'm sorry, you don't have to. Not if you don't want to, of course. I just thought, I remembered Steve saying--"

The kitchen is quiet. Upstairs, they can hear Matthew moving boxes around.

"I would not be in the way?"

Etta reaches across the table and grabs Diana's hand. Her grip is tight, even if her palms are free of the calluses and scars that Diana is used to. "Please stay," Etta whispers. "I would... I think we'd all feel better if you stayed. At least for a little while."

 

 

 

(It's a boy. They name him Steven.)

 

 

 

Diana leaves to travel the world when Steven is four. She stayed longer than she intended - longer than she thought she would - but there is comfort in family, in familiarity, in Steven's innocence. He cries in the doorway as she goes. Every time she returns, he is taller, Matthew is grayer, Etta's face is more lined. 

Diana never changes: she is careful to match her clothes to the popular fashions of whatever region she's in, to wear glasses when she wants to hide, but her face shows no age, no wear. Etta makes jokes at first, but as the years go on the jokes stop. Diana has always been different, but it's more obvious now and she finds that her trips to London are shorter, farther between, because she does not want to draw attention.

 

 

 

(Charlie drinks himself to death. Sameer is in a car accident. Matthew has a heart attack just after Steven's seventeenth birthday. She hasn't had a letter from Chief in over a year and she's too afraid to go visit and find another friend gone.)

 

 

 

Steven is nineteen when England enters World War II. Diana rushes to London and finds Etta alone in her kitchen. She's not crying, not shaking. She is numb. The house is empty. The radio is on.

Diana sits next to her and holds her hand. There is a picture of Steven in his uniform on the kitchen table. 

"I thought we did this already," Etta says quietly. "I thought you killed the God of War."

_But men make choices,_ Diana thinks, and tries to remember where she last left her armor.


End file.
